Meets with recipients of USDA Rural Development grants and loans

U.S. Senator Michael Bennet visits with Rural USDA grant and loan recipients, during a stop at Abts Pharmacy, in Haxtun, Monday. The stop was part of his tour of the eastern plains to highlight issues facing the region and discuss federal legislation that significantly affecs rural Coloradans, including the Farm Bill. (Callie Jones/Journal-Advocate)

HAXTUN — U.S. Senator Michael Bennet met with recipients of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development grants and loans Monday, at Abts Pharmacy in Haxtun, as part of his tour of the Eastern Plains, to highlight and discuss the importance of USDA Rural Development resources in the Farm Bill.

“The programs included in the Farm Bill reach much farther than our farmers and ranchers. This is an important bill that we need to pass sooner rather than later because it provides assistance for all aspects of our rural economies,” Bennet said.

It's thanks to the Farm Bill and USDA Rural Development that Melissa and Travis Bumgardner, the owners of Abts Pharmacy, received a $200,000 revolving loan, administered by Highline Electric Association, to help them expand their business from Julesburg to Haxtun and Holyoke.

When they first bought the pharmacy in Julesburg four years ago, they had a regular business loan, “the last loan that that company did zero down,” Melissa said.

“After a couple of years of being there we noticed that the neighboring towns around us were without pharmacy services that we felt these rural communities were entitled to have,” she said, noting Haxtun hadn't had a pharmacy for 10 years.

They were already delivering to Haxtun and Holyoke and had a “pretty good clientele going.” So, they met with Don Burris, CEO of Haxtun Hospital District, to “see how we might be able to partner to bring the pharmacy here at the least expensive way possible.”

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“Coming here into the hospital saved us a tremendous amount of money, because we didn't have to buy and refurbish a building, and they provided much of the remodel for us,” Melissa said. “Then having the other pharmacy and be able to share fixtures and things like that also helped.”

Though those things helped them cut costs, they needed money to start up and getting a commercial loan on a startup pharmacy is “near impossible,” she said. So, they turned to Highline.

“We were at the wire; we really needed to get some things done and the folks at Highline made it possible for us,” Melissa said. “If we didn't have this loan, this pharmacy would not be open. We didn't have the other funding opportunities that we needed to open.”

The $200,000 they've received primarily paid for the pharmacy in Haxtun, but it also helped with the one in Holyoke.

Between the two counties and three stores there are 25 employees total, eight in Phillips County.

“Those are eight employees that would not be having jobs, were it not for (the loan),” Melissa said.

Highline was able to offer Abts Pharmacy a loan after they obtained interest free loans and grants from the Rural Utilities Service for the Crook Community Center and Fire District and the Melissa Memorial Hospital in Holyoke, in 2007 and 2009. From those two projects, more than $500,000 was paid back into a revolving loan fund.

So far, they've loaned out $320,000 and currently they have approximately $208,000 waiting to be loaned out.

A committee, made up of individuals in banking and economic development, review projects requesting a loan and make recommendations to Highline's board of directors.

Bennet asked those at the meeting what they would say to people who say, “Well, is this really a reasonable thing to cover? Shouldn't we just let the private sector do this?”

Burris pointed out that the pharmacy benefits the citizens who use it, but it also provides an economic boost to the hospital.

“It's really a domino effect. Getting someone to start a business and bring that to our community doesn't just help them. It helps the hospital; it helps other businesses in town,” he said.

Highline President Michael Bennett added that being in a rural area in a smaller community, a lot of traditional banks might look at the population and say “you're not going to be able to support a pharmacy; you're not going to be able to do these kind of things."

“So, without specialized funding, with people in the local area that understand the needs, I don't think you'd be able to secure the funding that easily,” he said.

He called the revolving loans “the last mile in some cases.”

John Ayoub, CEO Melissa Memorial Hospital, in Holyoke, talked about how they benefited from Highline's loan to build a new building. Thanks to the loan they were able to add an arthroscopy tower and increase their medical staff from just over two full-time equivalents to just over 6 FTE's.

“If you look at were we were, we've doubled the net revenue of the hospital in just the last six years,” Ayoub added. “When we look at the income that folks are bringing home, we went from about $3.5 million in 2007 to about $6.1 million this past year.”

Another entity to benefit from Highline was Haxtun Community Child Care Center; they received an operating loan to build the center.

Prior to the center being built there was nowhere for parents to take their children while they worked, so they were leaving Haxtun. Now, with the center people are returning to the town.

The center has gone from just four children enrolled two years ago, to 103 children enrolled this year. There are four teachers at the center and they have room to hire four more.

Laurie Jones, small business consultant for Northeast-East Central Colorado Small Business Development Center, talked about the $27,500 USDA Rural Business Enterprise grant that Logan County Economic Development Corporation was awarded. She wrote the application for the grant.

“The purpose of the grant is to get technical assistance for a feasibility study to look at the oil seed industry as an alternative crop to be grown in our region,” she said. “Then (we could) have a processing center in Logan County, which could be kind of a central hub.”

They have put out a request for proposals and they should be getting proposals back from professional consultants in about a week.

“Coming through a grant fund program helps ease the burden a little bit, of bringing in someone, getting an independent consultant driven report done, that we can then disseminate out in the farming community through CSU, work with some of search partners and give us that credibility to get started,” Jones explained.

The Farm Bill that has helped make all the things that were discussed possible has been stalled in Congress and is currently operating on a short-term extension.

As a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Senator Bennet helped write the bipartisan Farm Bill that the Senate passed in June. Earlier this month, he was selected as a member of Farm Bill Conference Committee, which will work out the differences between the House and Senate version of the Farm Bill.

“If Congress doesn't act the Farm Bill will expire in a matter of weeks,” Bennet said. “The bill is critical to our rural communities, and they deserve much better than short-term extensions that make it more difficult to plan for the future.”

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